Cats have no emotions. At least, that’s what my husband once claimed. I argued that my two cats experience emotions. They feel anger, fear, and happiness. He agreed with me, but stuck to his opinion that cats don’t feel love. However, my tuxedo cat, Sebastian, would teach him otherwise.

When my next-door neighbour moved in, he had a cat named Juliet. She was an indoor lady, always watching the environment through the window. Then one day when I accompanied my cat to the backyard for his playtime,Sebastian caught sight of Juliet gazing at him behind the window. It soon became obvious that they were attracted by each other. So every day thereafter, whenever I let Sebastian out, he would rush straight to the backyard next-door and they would sit gazing lovingly at each other through the screen, she inside, and he outside. Even my husband watched in amazement, and he would murmur, “But cats can’t feel love... can they?”

Five months later, my neighbour had to move because of work. My heart sank. I wondered how Sebastian would react to Juliet’s leaving.

For months after Juliet moved away and the new neighbour moved in, I often caught Sebastian sitting by Juliet’s window,looking into the apartment in search of his lady. The new neighbour didn’t mind having the“Peeping(偷看) Sebastian” after I explained his reason for being there. Sebastian marked the small area outside that window as his territory. Other male cats were allowed in the backyard, but not near Juliet’s window, which he guarded until his death.

Even now, when my husband and I walk through the backyard and see that window, he reminds me of the lesson Sebastian taught him... that cats do indeed fall in love.

Culture is too complex to define in simple terms. However, there are certain agreed-on fundamentals that can be easily identified. One is that culture is a total pattern of behaviour that is consistent in its components. Another fundamental is that culture is learned behaviour. The third is that culture is behaviour that is shared by a group of people.

To understand the culture of a particular country or region, one could examine its components, among which are material culture, language, and social organization. Material culture includes the tools and symbols in a society, not including those physical things found in nature, unless they have undergone some change or have been given meaning by people. For example, a mouse running on a street is not part of a culture, but the Mickey Mouse is. The way we consume and what we consume are heavily influenced by material culture.

Language is the most obvious difference between cultures, which reflects the nature and values of that culture. Industrialized societies have a rich vocabulary for commercial and industrial activities, while less industrialized societies may have richer vocabularies for matters important to their societies.

Social organization differs somewhat from society to society. The primary kind of community association is based on blood ties. In many developing countries, the extended family fulfills several social and economic roles. It provides mutual protection, psychological support and a kind of economic insurance or social security for its members. The term “brothers” in Zaire includes those whom we call cousins and uncles.

Cultural analysis serves a variety of purposes. Understanding the various dimensions and their inter-relatedness helps promote cross-cultural awareness. It leads on to the promotion of goodwill, social and economic planning and harmony between social groupings or societies.

A butterfly-shaped island in the central Aegean hopes to become Greece’s first carbon-free tourist destination.Under a deal with the government, Volkswagen, a carmaker, has donated several new electric vehicles for use by Astypalea’s public services; it will sell others at cost price to its 1,200 year-round residents. In return, the government has offered more financial assistance for islanders to buy electric cars and will build a solar and wind-fuelled power plant to replace polluting generators.

Unlike other nearby islands, Astypalea is not connected to Greece’s electricity providers. With only 3,000 rooms for visitors in small hotels or flats, tourism is still low-key. Many residents make a living the old-fashioned way: raising goats, keeping bees and fishing. The island was selected for Volkswagen’s experiment after Nikos Komineas,the go-ahead mayor, contacted the transport ministry for help in finding an electric bus to try out on its rough roads.

Most islanders sound keen on the project. Mr Komineas expects the number of private cars on Astypalea to fall by a third over the next five years. Its residents, he says, will get around on electric minibuses, which will be free,linked to a mobile-phone app and available round the clock.

Some observers smell greenwashing in the project. A bid for a solar park that would generate half the island’s electricity within three years will not get under way before the tourist season ends. A single wind-fuelled engine will be set up only in 2026, assuming the licensing process goes smoothly. That is not normally the case in the Aegean, where islanders worry that tourists will go elsewhere if the view is spoiled by an engine 200 meters high. And even then, the solar and wind-fulled power unit is planned to cover only about 80% of summer demand. But it is a start.